"If I believed that spirits ne'er
Return to earth once more,
And that there's naught unto them dear
In the life they loved before;
Then truly it would seem to me,
However fate has sped,
For souls there's no eternity,
And they and all are dead."
It must have struck every one who has read the life of Michel Angelo,
that he was, like King James the First of England, "nae great gillravager
after the girls," or was far from being susceptible to love--in which he
formed a great contrast to Raphael, and indeed to most of the Men of his
Time--or any other. This appears to have impressed the people of Italy
as something even more singular than his works, for which reason he
appears in popular tradition as a good enough goblin, not without
cheerfulness and song, but as one given to tormenting enamoured couples
and teasing lady artists, whom he subsequently compliments with a gift.
The legend is as follows: